مطَفَحتِش من نيلها؟

I am back from my trip! WOW, there are no words that can describe how amazing it was.

TOEOG stands for: the Trip Of the Extra Ordinary Gentlemen

We traveled approximately 3250KM in 12 days and spending time in around 27 cities and passing by uncountable number of other cities
Starting from Cairo – Egypt passing by Jordan – Syria – Lebanon then Syria and Jordan again and going back to Cairo.

Apart from the ferry boat part, i can say the trip was flawless, specially the Neweiba part.

Let the story begins , it all started by me and the group of the extraordinary leaving Cairo on the 29th and heading to Taba.

Sleeping on the beach and charging for a long exciting day.

We then headed to Neweiba to catch the ferry, according to my information (which i got from the ticketing office) there are 2 ferries each day, one is fast and takes 1 hour and leaves at 11:00am and the other is slower takes 3 hours and leaves between 3:00 and 4:00pm. Both ferries are runned by the Arab Bridge Maritime Transport company (I HATE YOU F*^#@$ BASTARDS!) the worst transport company in the world, if you tried it, you will NEVER complain about EgyptAir, they are heaven in comparison.

Let’s have a quote from their website and see how the reality is: “Speed of transition from one country to the other in less than an hour and distinguished service in unique, enjoyable and safe trips“

We arrived at 10:30am, finishing the procedures and thinking that we are so late, only to discover that the ferry won’t leave at 11:00, instead it will leave at 1:00pm.

So it was ok, we waited, in the most filthy and un-humane room you could ever imagine, while the weather was unberably hot.

It was 1:00pm, and we started to ask when we will board, and no one really knew, at first, i was getting responses like “in an hour” or so, but then i didn’t get any response at all, no one have any clue what the hell is going on exactly.

It was 4:00pm and no one really knew if there even will be a ferry today or not.

We were all really tired, depressed and started to lose hope, but at 6:30 they opened the boarding gates, to families only, as they are unbeleivably dumb, they sell tickets which are valid for 6 months, so they don’t know how many passenger is going to board the ship.

And since they only have a limited number of seats allowed, they have to sacrifice with persons who don’t have kids or women and make them wait to the next day.

Luckily, they considered us as a family, as there were girls, they wouldn’t let me in, until one of the girls confirmed that i am her “husbndad” so they let me pass.

So, you’d normally think that 8 hours of waiting is more than enough, but hey! did you forget about my bad luck and Karma? We only went to the boat at 6:30pm, then they found out that even after preventing the singles from boarding, they’re still short on seats, so we were at the “raseef” just next to the ferry boat, and the whole crowd arguing\fighting with the crew and employees all demanding to board.

Long story short, we ended up on the ferry boat, but again, it was around 7:00 or 7:30pm, we the ferry boat didn’t move until 9:30-10:00pm, arriving to Aqaba after 1 hour 15 minutes, all *DEAD* tired from more than 12 hours of waiting.

Do you think the horror story just ends here? nope!!!
we get our luggage and then head to the passports section to get ours stamped and leave (our plan to attend Petra Night was demolished, all what we wished for by that time was a shower and a bed). There was people on the other side (Aqaba to Neweiba) who seemed to be living in the ports for days waiting for their turn in the ferry, which scared me ALOT!

Only to be greeted by the officer who has our passports and notifying us that we are not allowed to enter the Jordanian lands! My jaw fell to the ground, while am half asleep and asked why, only to discover that “الرعايا المصريين بيسببوا مشاكل وبيهربوا وأن الأردن فيها عمالة زايدة…وفيما معناه كدة يعنى مش ناقصين” So since we had a Visa to enter Lebanon, they would transfer us to the Syrian borders (يرحلونا للجدود السورية) and they started the transfer procedures.

Offcourse i couldn’t believe what am hearing! because just when i thought it couldn’t get worse than spending 14hours waiting for the ferry, they wouldn’t grant us entry to Jordan and we have to spend more hours traveling to Damascus-Syria!

We found a soldier (أيوة عسكرى….العساكر هناك بتلبس نضيف,بتعرف تقرأ وتكتب وعندها مخ و كدة) and we explained the situation to him, that we are all doctors and engineers and we are coming to Jordan for tourism, we already have HR letters from our companies and that we have enough cash money, the guy *ACTUALLY* listened to us, and went to speak to his superior officer (the guy who refused to give us an entry VISA), the officer let us again into his office, looked at our papers and he understood that we look decent and can’t be coming to escape in Jordan, we’re just a bunch of crazy Egyptians.

So he called his superior (it was midnight by then!!!! 12:00am), woke him up and told him our story, can you believe that he was not punished by his superior for waking him up! instead, the guy told him to grant us access to Jordan!!!!

I actually couldn’t belive myself! If i was told that story, i COULD NEVER believe that an Arab governoment would do something like that!

Anyway, we finished our paperwork, and headed outside, offcourse, not like Egypt, most cities sleep at 10:00pm, so there was no way for us to find a Taxi to take us to Petra, where we had an hotel reservation.

I found a guard on the entrance and asked him where could i find a Taxi now, he told me i can’t, but then he found me dead tired and desperate after all that happened to us, so he called a Taxi driver who is a friend of his, and asked him to come pick us and take us where we want!!!!!

الأردنيين (الأردنيين بجد, مش الفلسطنيين) أكتر ناس جدعان قابلتهم فى حياتى….بجد هما دول بتوع الكرم و النخوة و الشهامة و الحاجات الحلوة دى إللى بنسمع عنها فى القصص

We finally arrived to Petra at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, woke up the receptionist, got our rooms, took a shower and fell asleep!

So, why مطفحتش من نيلها؟ i could really accept the fact that the US, Europe and many other countries are more advanced, more organized, respect their people and provide decent, non humiliating means of living, but to see that in Lebanon(which is supposedly in war), Syria (which has severe international problems and is even poorer than Egypt) and Jordan(who doesn’t have any major industries or agriculture, doesn’t have water etc) to be THAT MUCH BETTER, it’s really disappointing.

• المعاملة الزبالة الزبالة الزبالة الحقيرة إللى إتعاملنا بيها فى ميناء نويبع…ولا قطيع الغنم
• الفرق بين معاملة الضباط الأردنيين والمصريين
• الفرق بين العساكر!!!مفيش وجه مقارنة أصلا
• إزاى الناس كويسة و مش بتستغلك,,مع أنك سائح…على عكس ما أحنا بنعمل معاهم تماما
• نظافة الطرق و الشوارع
• المحافظة على قوانين المرور…التاكسى وقف فى إشارة حمراء فى وسط الصحراء الساعة 2 بالليل…مكنش فى سلعوة معدية…مع ذلك وقف برضو
• إزاى المصريين بيحبوا ياخدوا على قفاهم…وساكتين عادى….على رأى محمد صبحى:”شعبناجميل يتسرق و يصفق” يصفق يعنى يسقف يا جاهل ياللى مفهمتش…أيوة أنت

Next, Episode 1—-> Petra, the Turkish Bath how to be clean!, Jerash, Transportation in Jordan and my beloved Damascus!